“When politicians insult Muslims… that doesn’t make us safer”, he said, drawing applause from the crowd in the House of Representatives chamber. Well, so is all the rhetoric you hear about our enemies getting stronger and America getting weaker. And he also declared: “The United States of America is the most powerful nation on Earth”.
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White House aides earlier said that Obama would use the annual showpiece speech at 9 p.m. ET to paint a picture of a country empowered by its ethnic diversity and infused with possibility, while signaling he has no plans to be ushered from center stage.
He rebutted critics and the GOP White House hopefuls, but also acknowledged his own failure to transform the country’s bitter politics and unite the nation. On rooftops from Arizona to NY, solar is saving Americans tens of millions of dollars a year on their energy bills, and employs more Americans than coal – in jobs that pay better than average.
Democratic strategist Brad Bannon said Obama “made the argument very well that leadership is not bombing the crap out of someone”. “Our public life withers when only the most extreme voices get attention”.
“It’s one of the few regrets of my presidency – that the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better”, he said toward the end of the speech.
For those who missed the live State of the Union coverage, the president’s speech can be read online.
Trump has mounted much of his insurgent candidacy on the notion of America losing ground, both economically and in terms of global influence. Ted Cruz, who has overtaken Trump’s first place position in Iowa in several polls.
Meeting the threat of Islamic State, Obama said, “needs to be more than tough talk or calls to carpet-bomb civilians”. The development, which Obama did not mention, prompted criticism from Republicans about Obama’s hard-fought Iran nuclear deal, which the president extolled, arguing that “the world has avoided another war”.
On his Twitter account Tuesday night, the candidate dismissed Obama’s speech as “really boring”.
Obama used a similar illustration in his 2011 State of the Union address, when he paid tribute to former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in the head outside a Tucson, Ariz., supermarket in 2010. Mr Obama said. “Or will we face the future with confidence in who we are, what we stand for, and the incredible things we can do together?”
The Republican response to the State of the Union address was delivered by Nikki Haley, the governor of SC.
“During anxious times, it can be tempting to follow the siren call of the angriest voices”. “We the People. Our Constitution begins with those three simple words, words we’ve come to recognise mean all the people, not just some; words that insist we rise and fall together”, said the US President.
The SOTU address was also one of Obama’s last opportunities to address the American people before presidential candidates commenced their campaigns for the federal election in November.
“There is no shortage of issues that this Congress can address immediately and, with the important challenges facing our country, inaction is not an option”, he said.
He emphasized areas where compromise was possible with Republicans in Congress including criminal justice reform, trade and poverty reduction.
Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R-2nd Dist.): President Obama is clearly focused on his legacy rather than finding solutions for problems still facing our families or protecting our nation’s security.
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Obama also touted the steady climb in high school graduation rates, which hit a “new record high” of 82 percent in the 2013-14 school year-but he left out the sometimes-slippery methods high schools have employed to achieve this stunning milestone (like, say, misclassifying dropouts as “transfers”) and what, if anything, graduating from high school has to do with the ability to hold down a job or, you know, read.
